C64 playback engine emulation.
Hi there,
I don't know a thing about max programmation but I know the possiblitties are really great.
But first listen the synth in the beggining.
Yesterday I just listened this :
And it's like WTF? the thing is grooving like hell, ableton is just fuc** boring compared to that !! I did some research and in fact that's the music chip inside who plays the sound this way. It has a crazy variation code inside. I don't know about you but to my hears it's gold.
So I have an idea ! loL. Let me expplain what's inside my head.
I tried to do the same in ableton with clip automation. It works well but take ages ! (I can send you previews if you like to hear it and it does sound like the C64 music chip).
Basicly what the chip music is doing, I think (I'm a musician not a programmer). It has a note length database and create variation out of it. And this for every instrument. And I think is very pleasant to listen.
In Ableton it's a bit Like if you create a midi effect rack with different note length inside and put a random on it. it works really well I also tried it but once again take ages.
So my Why not to create a max for live patch who use the bpm as reference and implement like a variation code inside with ratio and stuff to create variation of the same note?
If anyone is interrested doing it just pop in ! I have the max demo on my computer. And it would be great to collaborate something.
Damien.
I have literally no idea what you're talking about. To my ears (musician and programmer, if that even matters) all those notes aren't varied in length by any chip or algorithm.
Are you referring to the swing going on in the giana sisters video? Or perhaps the dragging snare in the buddy holly cover? Or perhaps the not-so subtle movement in pwm on the sid chip?
I'd start there. Go read up on the SID, to find out which of its features you're falling in love with, because I'm pretty certain it's not inherent timing *on* the chip.
The grooves you can extract with Ableton Live and apply to your own material. The actual C64 sounds can be downloaded for free: http://howtomakeelectronicmusic.com/270mb-of-free-c64-samples-made-by-odo
Have fun,
Hens
So you think the swing is from the Commodore sequencer itself?
U agree that if I put the same midi track in ableton the thing is not swinging at all this way, It's all flat. even with the groove template thing..
Yeah thanks, I was talking about doing a patch..
Hi Damien, I've been a SID chip tragic for 25 years and I've never encountered anything regarding a special 'swing' capability or the attention to note-length variation you mention.
It is common to hear people talk of the SID chip as having some sort of special, ephemeral, quality that no one can exactly pin down, thus explaining away the appeal of the music as something that 'just happens'. In my opinion, the SID chip was the beneficiary of being in the right place, having the right capabilities, at the right time. There was just enough capabilities for musicians to make something with, there was a massive market for games as a platform for presenting music, and there were the chip's limitations which forced musicians to develop their own tools and routines and, in other words, step apart from the crowd. It is this last point that I believe contributes most to the the mysterious, ephemeral, qualities of the SID chip. One might say that musicians didn't make music on the C64, they made music for the C64.
As far as software goes, you might want to check out Goattracker2 for mac and windows. If you've got a C64 emulator, check out Rockmonitor 3 to see how they did it way back when. If you haven't done so already, get SidPlay and the High Voltage Sid Collection, you'll waste your life on it (trust me).
In the meantime, Check out the 'bass' that kicks here in at around 35 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxqzezn6lc0
Hi sid,
Nice bassline the swing is crazy, no way to achieve something like this with our modern groove template right?
Yes the possibilites were restricted back then but i feel like when you press play on C64 sequencer the whole thing is swinging so nicely on his own, but when you doing that in ableton it's just straight and boring (Why??)
If I understood what u said, the swing is not coming from the chip but the sequencer? I asked some C64 fans and they said it comes from the chip.
To me the only reason why the C64 chip has so many fans is only because of the swing (I think!)
And thanks for trying to waste my life lol but i'm already doing it by trying to make the damn ableton grooving the way I like.
My subject was to trying to reacreate something via max but apparently everyone like straight music nowadays.!
Sid, I just downloaded Vice and had some fun with it. The chip emulation is great. Is there any way to know what's going on inside? I'm sure there's a crazy code inside doing the swing job. I actually think it's the same swing for every instrument but interacting in different ways.
Due to chip limitations that consist of many aspects, but one fundamental would be processing numbers . U wont get steady sequences with various tempos .
Even if clock was provided any divisions in time signature could not be exact . I would risk to say that but my guess is that certain swing would occur at many points of a sequence anyway . So u end up with fluffy timing . Another interesting thing that i met was providing mixed/sequenced waveforms . Sid has mentioned about people tricking CHIPS to achieve spectacular for that time effects . One of them for example i would call "arpeggiating" waveforms (if such term would exist) .
Switching waveform beetween sequence entities , which would require clock again , and again it would additionally swing on its own . U may really notice that ERRORs , and many people loves them .
In new world we could imitate it though humanizing note placement . thats all . shifting off the notes by certain amount in time separately will give u unregular/human playback effect .
Just try and u will see how near the beauty of "imperfection" lays :)
#EDIT & PS
so if someone told u that such off-swing comes from chip , he was actually right . But the nature of it might be determined rather by its limitations than intentions .
"swing"
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
yeah, stringtapper. I'll stand by the theory that it's probably a combination of weird timing in a track and the pwm ducking the volume, providing a sort of "interior groove".
"Nice bassline the swing is crazy, no way to achieve something like this with our modern groove template right?"
Why on earth wouldn't it be possible? Stick a sample of it in Live - extract groove - done. :)
I propose 'metric elasticity' or 'Bonham' (as in 'John') as a term for the phenomena we are discussing.
In order to execute such a Bonhamie (pun intended), I'd probably go for an 'old-school' solution: Turn your quantise off and play it in as you want it heard.
I fell at the first hurdle for my own MaxSID development. In my view, the tricky aspect is the difference between the way in Max (or any commercially available sequencer) regards 'channels' or 'tracks', and how you should approach the SID chip to get the most out of it.
In most sequencing/music software in the present day, a track or channel typically refers to an instrument or voice where that voice stays roughly the same. Bass on track 1, Lead on track 2, Chords on track 3 etc. It's a bit of a hangover from the multi-track tape days but works well when we have so many tracks to hand and it's easy to keep track of (yes, that was another pun).
The Sid chip has 3 channels (+ the hack-ish 4-bit sampling channel. I say hack-ish because, as legend has it, it wasn't designed to be there but was instead found by clever programmers). The voice within each channel, can only play one waveform at a time but that waveform can be changed from note to note (or changed during a note). So you can have a bass line (pulse waveform) and a snare drum (white noise waveform) timed to occur on the one track where they never get in the way of each other. You can mask this method quite well when you then go to the second or third track from time to time, provided you have a gap there, in order to get a bass note to occur at the same time as the snare, thus creating the impression of two independent voices on the (most-of-the-time) one track.
Having the 4 basic waveforms armed and at the ready for each of the three tracks was too much for my meagre Max skills. I didn't get any further than that really.
I think the simplest answer for the OP is that since you "don't know a thing about Max 'programmation'" you should probably just focus on getting better with a DAW, in this case Ableton Live.
Nothing about what you're hearing in those examples is impossible in any DAW, and it shouldn't take a bunch of setup to achieve. As the last poster said, turning off quantization and simply playing in your parts with some controller can help humanize your sequences… depending on how "human" you are, of course. ;-)
@Do...while
Thanks for your explanations you're probably right. Error are nice lol.
And the thing to slightly move midi note, I did it with very very little scale. It works well and the effect is nice but it's a non human job if you know what I mean. Then the struggle is do I have to quantize or not after playing..
@stringtapper
What is a swing for you then?
My POV is : I see it as a deformation of the beats who create a movement of draggin or rushin.
But what's a groove then? are they the same thing?
About the "setup" thing, I'm working on it. and it takes a while but i found a couple of awesome technique but it's really hard to put them all together.!
And again playin is the easy part I think. Doing a "boom boom tchak" with a nice groove is that difficult.! Do you agree? Don't you think that all those music producer have their secret techniques to make their sequence somewhere between human and not?
Listen that guy : He is not professional keyboard player. I don't even think he played his note.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq0L3w0ZBQg (Check it we can see the arrangement view at a certain point)
There's only some guys who can create crazy shit with ableton live. Stop thinking it takes hour of playin with supreme skills or some crazy editing ! As U said you have to find the right technique and to set it up.!
By the way what's your type of music?
We could work a project together I have no problem with showing my "techniques"
(This is an open proposition for everyone)
@Sid
Thanks for your explanation about the chip functioning,. The last part with bass and snare playin together is a bit hard to get but whatever.
Check the comment from Raja_The_Resident_Asswipe is PMW thing is meeting what u said and I totally agree with what both of you said and that's probably what's nice about the C64 chip.
And Yes I'm opting for the old-school bonhamie (I like that one) playing solution. I just feel like the playback from when I play and the one when the midi plays is totally different! Do you agree?
And about your max patch at least you had a try,. About my idea I was more talking about only midi max patch.